WASHINGTON — Joe Whitt Jr. wasn’t interested in detailing the structure of his defense, the coverages or the profiles of players the Washington Commanders sought for their defense. The specifics, he told a room of reporters in February after he was named the defensive coordinator, didn’t really matter. Not then.

“The main thing that matters to me is, are we going to be arriving violently?” he said. “And we’re going turn the ball over. We’re going to make sure we disrupt these quarterbacks.”

In Sunday’s 34-13 win against the Cleveland Browns, Whitt’s defense finally started to fit his vision, with a physical attack that forced turnovers, rattled Deshaun Watson and sacked him seven times.

“I definitely feel like we did that,” linebacker Bobby Wagner said afterward. “You know, we’re trying to get better. There’s still stuff that I feel like we can fix, and each week we just want to get better. I feel like we’re doing that.”

Cleveland was almost helpless under the pressure. It converted 1 of 13 third-down attempts, averaged a mere 3.6 yards per play and was forced to punt seven times.

And to think Washington’s defense entered the game worst in the NFL in terms of opponent third-down conversion rate after totaling eight sacks in four games and struggling to marry its rush and coverage.

How did one of the leakiest defenses suddenly morph into a cohesive group that built on a promising Week 4 showing to shut down the Browns in Week 5?

“Outside of bringing a little more pressure than they usually do, they did what they did — a lot of cover-two, they hit their spots when they played man [coverage], did a lot of disguising,” Watson said Sunday night. “That was pretty much it.”

It started up front, where Washington’s line, with help from its linebackers, pressured Watson on 43.6% of his dropbacks, the third-highest rate of all teams in Week 5. Eight defenders recorded multiple pressures, led by defensive end Dorance Armstrong, who finished with six pressures and a sack on 25 pass rushes. Armstrong, a free agent signing from the Dallas Cowboys, was also the catalyst in Week 4, when he had 1 1/2 sacks of the Arizona Cardinals’ Kyler Murray.

“This is a quarterback that has mobility, can get outside the pocket, and they present their own challenge when the second play begins,” coach Dan Quinn said of Watson. “So it was really cool to see them finishing on that. The early part of the year, we weren’t able to do that. We had gotten some pressure and didn’t finish. Tampa comes to mind. And so to see them work on that and finishing, that’s a big deal.”

The front seven stifled the Browns, especially on early downs, to create multiple instances of third and long (6 yards or more). A tackle for a loss by Jonathan Allen led to a third-and-17 on Cleveland’s second drive. Then it had a third-and-6 on its third drive, a third-and-10 on its fourth and so on. Four of Washington’s seven sacks were on third-and-long.

The Browns were stuffed (a loss or 0 yards) on 26.1% of their runs, and the average distance needed to convert their third downs was 8.4 yards, per the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.

Twice the Commanders used the same blitz — a “middle cross dog,” in which linebackers Frankie Luvu and Wagner rushed up the middle — to collapse the pocket and bring down Watson. The second time they did it, in the third quarter, Wagner strip-sacked Watson and Luvu recovered the fumble.

“I should have scored on that,” said Luvu, who had 2 1/2 sacks. “Anyway, we knew on film that Deshaun likes to escape in the B gaps [between the tackles and guards], so when I was coming around the edge, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going past him.’ … So I counter back to the B gap, but I just see him looking around, and Bobby just hit him and the ball. Couldn’t get any better; it just landed in my hands.”

Washington didn’t necessarily take a different approach from previous games. It blitzed Watson on 30.8% of his dropbacks, down from 37.0% against Arizona the previous week.

The Commanders also used their usual personnel groupings, spending an overwhelming majority of their defensive snaps (89.8%) in nickel packages, with five defensive backs, just as they did through their first four games (90.4%), according to the website TruMedia. They played just one snap in their base 4-3 defense, with four down linemen and three linebackers. Two of the team’s sacks came when it was in dime, with six defensive backs on the field.

“We executed really well,” Allen said. “The DBs aren’t going to get enough credit because of the amount of sacks we got, but … whenever you get that amount of sacks, the DBs should get a lot of credit because they played really well. They made it tough for [Watson]. A lot of his looks on the first reads weren’t there, and it allowed us to get home.”

Watson faced a tight window, in which his intended targets had less than a yard of separation from defenders when the pass arrived, on 17.6% of his attempts, per Next Gen Stats.

Among Washington’s best sequences Sunday came during Cleveland’s first drive of the second quarter. After the Browns turned positive field position into a scoring threat, cornerback Benjamin St-Juste deflected a pass intended for Amari Cooper on first down, safety Quan Martin deflected one for Jerry Jeudy on second, and Luvu delivered a sack on third, prompting the Browns to settle for a field goal.

“They were kind of banged up on offense as O-linemen, so we took that as an advantage as a defensive line trying to get after them,” Luvu said. “We have it on our shoulders as a defense, like this is the game for us to step forward from where we were at last week. We’re just getting started and moving forward from there.”